Growth 2018 ISMA (International Stress Management Association) Conference at the Royal Over-Seas League

On Friday the ABC attended ISMA (International Stress Management Association) Conference at the:

Royal Over-Seas League, 6 Park Pl, St. James's, London SW1A 1LR.

Carol Spiers FISMA, FPSA, MIHPE is the chair of ISMA - with over twenty years spent as a CEO running a leading UK stress management consultancy. Carole is also a familiar BBC guest broadcaster, best selling author, accomplished speaker and a professional public speaking coach - a fellow and past President of the Professional Speaking Association (London). 

Thus, the standard of the speakers was understandably very high - excellent would be a better description.

Image left: The entrance to the Royal Over-Seas League, 6 Park Pl, St. James's, London SW1A 1LR

Image: ISMA Chair; Carole Spiers

Rohit Talwar a futurist was particularly interesting and his talk on where ITC is going in the future with Artificial Intelligence augmenting and assuming many daily tasks but developing to a point where we may have machines with higher brain power than humans. This is Rohit Talwar speaking at another event earlier in the year:

Elizabeth Wright an Australian Paralympic Olympic middle-distance swimming silver medallist - from Sydney had a wonderful tale to tell of her journey to win a silver medal at the Sydney 2000 Para Olympic Games. Born with limbs missing, a congenital condition, doctors felt the shock to her mother would be so great, mum was sedated and rendered unconscious for four days after Elizabeth’s birth. Elizabeth was taught to be independent from early on and she learned to get around as a child by borrowing her brothers skateboard. Painfully shy, the stress of her first competitive experience in Melbourne saw her doing the crawl, not the breaststroke, for the first few yards of her heat - leading to disqualification. Her name in lights on the results board with a DQ next to it. A tearful chat with dad turned things around and seven years later she achieved her dream of winning an Olympic medal. Author and speaker, Elizabeth is studying for the worlds first MA in Character Education through the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at Birmingham University. Alas, technology gremlins failed Liz and she suggested we watch the video of her silver medal swim at home, so we have added the footage below.  

Mental Health campaigner South African Geoff McDonald, former VP HR, Unilever had a great personal story. Paralyzed with anxiety and depression out of the blue - a top-flight career came to an abrupt standstill as Geoff could not leave his house for three months. A speculative email to Alistair Campbell, Labour strategist, brought about a meeting and eventually Geoff struck out on his own with a burning passion for tackling mental health in organisations. Simon Collyer, ABC founder, led the clapping when Geoff mentioned bullying, narcissistic bosses – ‘we know about those for sure’. Today in the workplace employees are being ‘frazzled’ with more and more work being given to individual workers as companies talk about being leaner and more efficient, as austerity also bites into the public sector head count. Geoff’s message was that we are looking at the world the wrong way and that people suffering from mental health issues must speak out and reach out for help.

Image: Former BBC Panorama presenter, Penny Haslam

Penny Haslam was the MC and she looked familiar face having worked for the BBC as a news journalist - hosting BBC’s Panorama 2010 -2011 then becoming BBC Breakfast News presenter. Penny has also presented on the News Channel and Radio 5 Live. She is now an inspirational speaker and conference moderator. Quite a resume for someone who started her career as a BBC secretary.

There were many other speakers worth mentioning, panels discussions and afternoon workshops and exhibitors.

Other Keynote Presenters included; 

Dany Cotton - London Fire Commissioner

Deep Rajah DHIR - Lyca Radio

All in all, it was a fascinating event with some truly inspirational individuals both on the stage and in the audience.

We will be using many of the ideas, some very simple: Washing up for example, while working a stress ball under the soles of each foot one at a time!  Using magnesium (sprayed under the arm pits) available from health stores, alongside controlled breathing techniques to promote earlier and more productive sleep.

Establishing a range of daily rituals for better all-round health outcomes.

It was a great event very worth attending and we look forward with great expectation to next year.

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